


We Speak to Tree Gods

by Annie Christ (SmokedSalmon)



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Angst and Humor, Axel-centric, College, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mental Illness, Recreational Drug Use, Underage Drinking, University
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-27
Updated: 2015-01-20
Packaged: 2018-02-22 19:08:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2518625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmokedSalmon/pseuds/Annie%20Christ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Did you guys hear about that kid they found in the woods behind Radiant Hall?” Roxas’ voice had a throaty but tired lull that made the hairs on the back of Axel’s neck stand. “He was naked and covered in paint stolen from the art department and eating shrooms by the fistfuls. Someone said he didn’t take his Ritalin that morning, so they ended up having to sedate him for 48 hours afterward. People weren’t sure if he went to school here when they found him, but he totally does. Didn’t hear his name, though. Doubt they’re going to disclose it.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. He Doesn't Do Anal

**Author's Note:**

> Claire is an amazing beta and motivator. Thank her for supporting this fanfiction's convoluted existence. I don't know what to say about this story aside from the fact it's only going to get much worse from here on out, and I plan on exploiting every heinous, humiliating, emotionally crippling act we endure while trying to get a degree that doesn't hold the promise it used to. I probably should've titled this 'The Junior Year Existential Crisis.'

There’s something about being a black sheep that’s so fundamentally established in self-fulfilling prophecy, it becomes arduous to sympathize with. The rare cliché that’s being ‘different,’ and suffering in the martyrdom that's unfulfilling adolescence, makes for the same kind of recycled riffraff audiences have found themselves entertained by time and time again through every defined decade’s cinematographic escapades (e.g. Breakfast Club, SLC Punk, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, etc). Everlasting disenchantment on top of Holden Caulfield-inspired monologues on top of half-smoked American Spirits on top of discovering the clitoris swells like a miniature penis, and so on and so forth. The foundation for a Coming of Age exposition that’s been rehashed five hundred times, but with technological additives and pop culture quirks that are the key to relevancy and marketability. You see, it wasn’t that Axel didn’t _want_ to take his discolored wool seriously or find some kind of self-importance within his potentially heartrending state-of-being; it was that he couldn’t because he _knew_ he was a ploy; a well thought out stratagem in a vendible scheme capitalism had long since built around the ‘heart-shaped box.’

 _Grueling_. This summed up both the cumulative feel of the boy’s week and reaction to overthinking the ‘state of things.’ Beneath his bloated stomach, which was full of slopped together refrigerated chow mein and beer far past the fermenting point, laid a couch cushion that could’ve been the Patron Saint of Goodwills and Grandmothers. Lumpy stuffing and unapologetic cigarette burns pressed against his sensitive abdomen, and Axel groaned for the sake of hearing it echo throughout the living room.

The university assigned townhouse was empty. It was just him, the walls, and whatever soft burp gurgled up the back of his throat like an indirect threat. _Puke already. For the love of God, puke already._ He numbly stared at the front door and attempted to tangle his fingers into the plush green carpet, counting the dust motes that lazily drifted through that morning’s custard sunlight. One more burp and he told himself he would lodge his fingers down his spongy esophagus and _make_ it happen. But skin rippled at the thought of vomiting on his fingers, and the revulsion was punctuated by a callous shiver that scurried up his ribs like a fleet of crabs. 

Axel sluggishly rolled over to face the back of the musty couch, and his dry eyes blinked, creating a popping sound in the ringing silence of the room. From beyond the inferior townhouse walls he could make out the distinct chatter of Thursday morning on Dusky University’s lush Northwestern campus. With a defiant grunt, he squeezed his eyes shut and imagined the placid scenery in rigid distinction; stained Ugg boots circa 2012 skipping over mid-autumn puddles and parking lot oil spills, sleepy students tugging at the draw strings of their avocado school sweatpants, opened flannel shirts of every color and two-toned North Face jackets zipped tight at the throats of the still-faded. The predictability of his campus had gone from backbiting to wholehearted pride in a stereotype of full beards and raw vegan diets that were broken in the dead of night during kush-induced McDonalds runs. Axel knew this was better than self-loathing, but it was still ridiculous in the grand scheme of the self-aggrandizing collective. There were worse things, though.

“There he is!” A brilliant voice unlike anything Axel could grow accustomed to followed the front door bursting open and slamming shut with a ring. His eyes scrunched shut harder as if he could will his roommate’s melodies away. There was Bette Midler and then there was Demyx Ross, the theatre major who was minoring in Communications so that he could _sound_ practical, which Axel had noticed was a pattern among the Humanities dpartment. “The prodigal puke bag skipping class in the middle of the semester! Somehow he’ll keep his 4.0 GPA intact and piss off all of his roommates!” This was followed by an unfittingly assertive set of ‘la-di-das’ that crescendoed into operatic repetitions of his name ‘Axel Moonie,’ until he was completely distracted by the contents of the refrigerator. “There’s nothing to eat here, is there? Time to swipe, then. Come along, Axel!”

“Don’t talk about food,” he muttered and forced himself to sit upright, sweeping his single side of crusty hair backward, only to purse his lips in antipathy when the tresses’ grease kept them in place. He wiped his fingers on his denim-clad thigh as if he’d dipped them in Crisco. “I’ve been grappling for sick imagery since I woke up, hoping I'll puke up everything I drank last night.” His stomach persistently gurgled, making the mating call for food, and Demyx skeptically stared at him. “That doesn't mean anything. My body’s recovering and confused right now. You know how it is when you’re hungover.” Which reminded him. “How’re you even alive right now?”

“What do you mean?” Demyx tugged at his pastel blue loop scarf that shamelessly clashed with his yellow skinnies and knee-high brown boots. “If you mean, ‘why aren’t you hungover,’ then it’s practice. A lot of practice, my dear friend. Too much shameful, permanently lost to the Internet, ‘where did the condom go’ practice.” He tilted his head and puckered his lips while giving him the kind of appraising lookover that left Axel self-conscious. “Wow—you look like _shit_ right now. I could _probably_ guess what you smell like from here. Sort of like a sommelier of drunkards, except instead of hints of smoke and violets it’s more along the lines of onions, hydrogen sulfide and the fluids commonly excreted during an exorcism. You’re seriously sick, aren’t you?”

“Demyx,” Axel began, trying his best to keep from pushing Demyx out the front door so that he could engage in explosive diarrhea in peace. _Go watch him eat some pancakes. It won’t kill you. Be a friend._ “I should shower before we go.”

“Oh!” The fact that Axel was agreeing to go forced Demyx to pocket his phone. Axel knew he’d already started mentally cycling through all of their other friends’ class schedules, and he couldn’t blame him. He didn’t like eating alone either. “Absolutely not. Put a hat on. You look _fine_. More than fine, actually. You know how looking like _that_ is sort of your thing, right? People won’t think twice about it as long as you put a jacket on. Hustle and think about the bacon, oatmeal and eggs.” Axel’s stomach audibly churned. “ _Just kidding_. Don’t think about the eggs or anything that even remotely resembles oatmeal. Meditate on the image of dry toast and ginger ale. Maybe ingesting charcoal while you’re at it.”

The pair trudged outside only when Axel had covered his hair with a hanging maroon beanie and haphazardly slipped his arms into a motorcycle jacket that was homage to Alien Sex Fiend. Beyond the front door of their housing complex was what looked to be a beehive collection of seedy Panama motel rooms only conceivable as beautiful due to the Purple Mountain Majesty that loomed along the backdrop like a stark reminder that their tuition was solely covering the million-dollar view. That annual plunge into the red most definitely didn’t insure the chipped siding Maintenance saw no reason to repaint more than once every couple of epochs, nor did it begin to address the tattered courtyards that sat like forgotten fairy rings within the upperclassmen’s pathetic housing ‘neighborhoods.’ Students utilized the stone benches speckled throughout the depressing landscaping and freely smoked on the glacial blocks that were literal pains in the asses as soon as winter rolled around, but the try-hard usage wasn’t enough to instigate litigation.

“I know what you need!” Demyx slung his arm around Axel’s hunched shoulders that were elevated only because he was wrapping his arms around the top of his ribs to keep out the cold breeze while smoking Perique Blend like a freight train. They exchanged glances, but the threatening cut to his stare must’ve been dampened by his nausea. That or Demyx had finally worked up his own immunity to his set reservations. Either way, once they’d stepped into the mess hall’s warm embrace, Demyx redirected Axel toward the Starbucks kiosk and drummed his hands along the counter until the unenthused barista blinked in their direction. “Fattest cup of Pike Roast you can manage for this young man. He’s _dying_.”

 _Not far off the mark._ “I’m not that bad. Don’t be dramatic.”

“Have you looked at yourself?” Demyx grinned to soften his insult.

Axel wasn’t biting. “Didn’t you just say how I looked was _fine_?”

Remembering, the blond cleared his throat and squeezed his friend’s shoulder not once but twice. “You know I heard heroin chic is very in this season.”

Axel’s eyes narrowed in on his coffee’s slow licorice stream, and he couldn’t deny he was about to suck the allegorical dick of the Ethiopian highlands for bringing him the roasted bean. Banalities aside, he was deep breathing as if in the middle of a Lamaze class, trying not to vomit right on the barista who already hated her minimum wage morning. 

Demyx firmly thrust the cup into Axel’s hand and plucked the cigarette out between his two fingers so that he could ash it along the rim of the nearest trashcan. The No Smoking ordinance was upheld, and they’d watched defiant freshman go kicking and screaming through the front doors of buildings because, ‘This is the United States of America. I’m a fucking adult.’

“Do you realize you just told a theatre major not to be dramatic? Make more sense while you’re at it.” He blatantly ignored Axel’s grumble but perked up at his muttered ‘thanks for the coffee,’ which Axel seemed to be saying to the rim of the lid. “There we go. Now, let me _nourish_ you.”

Nourishment came in the form of toast slathered with almond butter and Axel crossing his ankles on the plastic chair across from him. Demyx to his left and an approaching Kairi before him, he tilted his head back and took a bite with bleary vision and a stomach whirling so violently it could’ve made Amish lard. Choking and dying right then and there with an audience would’ve been a wet dream considering how his head was throbbing in time with his heartbeat. Axel was somewhat masochistic that morning, and in turn decided to dwell on the course load he’d allowed to stockpile in his planner throughout the duration of the week. Meticulous research papers pertaining to Renaissance Literature bled into his future like a dark premonition, and he _almost_ groaned. Instead, he kept chewing; rolling pasty bread over his tongue as if his mouth was mixing cement.

“Axel, you look pale.” 

Kairi McKnight was a fellow English major and the kind of Honors student who’d allocated herself an Annual Pass in the offices of their professors. Not that Axel was any different himself in terms of English department ass-kissing, but she radiated ‘English’ in the way she regularly professed her love for Teavana and made her dormitory look like Pottery Barn. When she wasn’t shopping at Anthropologie and skirting through the library, she could be found ripping from Axel’s glass bong with tears in her eyes chanting ‘does Bukowski _really_ matter, Axel?’

Kairi’s tray hit the tabletop with a rattle and Demyx waved his fork in greeting. He was too busy chewing on pancakes and reading text messages to speak. “Paler than usual, I mean. Your skin is one shade away from _khaki_.”

“Hungover,” Axel explained, hoping that would sway them from entering a taxing conversation about his ever-shifting tolerance level. “What did we even _do_ last night?”

“ _You_ supposed your position as the Alanis Morissettelaureate and proceeded to sing us multiple renditions of _Ironic_ until someone finally took away the acoustic guitar.” 

Demyx stopped chewing for a moment as if suddenly recollecting the entire night in a ten second hurricane. “ _Incredible_.”

“You sure thought so at the time,” Kairi reminded him and pointedly stared at Demyx who pretended not to notice. Axel reached for his coffee he knew was a part of the country’s totalitarian consumerist scheme. He thought about conspiracy theories, Christopher Marlowe and mother birds regurgitating into their young's mouths. “The lecture you missed this morning was _important_ , Axel. I recorded the class for you.”

“You know,” Demyx interjected before Axel’s pursed lips could morph into a sly ‘thanks.’ He stabbed his mediocre pancake to punctuate on the suspense and brushed the spongy cake through an ocean of syrup. “We should do it again tonight.”

Axel’s coffee was losing degree leverage fast, but he continued holding the cup to his chest. “No way. I’m already behind. It’s too fucking close to midterms.”

“Behind for _you,_ ” Kairi started, exasperated that she had to acknowledge Axel’s modesty, “is being up to date with the syllabus and not three weeks ahead.”

Demyx slurped the orange juice from the rim of his glass and curled a lip in disgust. “That Axel Moonie sure is a _freak_. Someone should do something about him. Anyone know where we can find dry wood for a witch burning?” Amused by himself, Demyx’s attention jerked to the right and he shoved the fork into his mouth again. “An th’peaking uf _freakth._ ”

Axel’s coffee cup’s lid hovered beneath his upper-lip as he turned to acknowledge whatever Demyx had locked in on. He didn’t see it at first, but when he did, he slowly dragged the heels of his boots off the chair until they collided with the tile. The smack was loud enough to make neighboring eaters shoot him an overlook of annoyance, and Kairi looked up from her bacon slices to see what had caught both of the men’s eyes. It too took her a couple seconds to figure out which direction their gazes were focused on, but then she saw it. 

“You mean far right, ball buster, reactionary Republican, pro-life Sora’s baby brother?” Kairi bit down with a pointed crunch. “You know, believe it or not, he’s normal in my book.”

“Wait,” Axel paused. “Do you mean Sora’s the normal one or his brother is?”

Demyx cut in. “Now, _that_ is entirely subjective.”

Bundled in a black scarf and gray baggy sweater with a cold pinched nose and hands rubbing together, that day’s anomaly had strode through the café’s front doors and made a beeline for the deserted omelet station, obviously eager to eat. That was the atypical college response to food; the charged ‘white person jog’ accompanying the sheer hope for food as if Earth was made of crosswalks and nothing but Ramen and Hot Pocket famine. The _freak_ was mousy, and Axel’s first thoughts were somewhere along the lines of ‘an angel who’d rolled out of a barn after a long winter and into the sea.’ Apparently disoriented, starved and wearing the kind of knee high black boots Axel had almost broke his neck trying to get a better look at, the boy was a real piece of work. An actual Apollo who’d _somehow_ skirted the radar for three semesters.

“What’s his name?” Axel sipped his coffee, and his nausea had settled. “I didn’t even know Sora had a brother. He’s always acted like an only child.”

“Because he wishes he was.” Kairi swallowed. “And that’s – ”

“Roxas! Hey, _Roxas_!” Demyx rolled his hands upward and waved as if he’d been choreographing the greeting for weeks. When Roxas didn’t turn at the sound of his name, the Theatre major started muttering under his breath. “Little bastard better not ignore me. I swear to _God_ I’m not taking all 300 classes just to be disrespected by sophomore trash heaps who think being in Honors makes them worth anything. Who the fuck does he actually think he is? I will deliver him _to_ evil if he doesn’t turn – ”

Roxas turned around. Narrowing his stare at Demyx with noncommittal interest, Axel had to use his life force to keep himself from slamming Demyx’s waving hands down. 

“He knows who I am,” Demyx promised. “Roxas!”

“But does he _really_?” Axel finished his final crust. “Because it looks like he could care less about you. We probably couldn’t pay him to come over here.”

He moved onto a pile of scrambled eggs, adding another pond of syrup to his plate. “Probably because that _total loser_ Axel Moonie won’t stop sitting with us.”

Axel let the blow past. “How do you know him?”

“Why so interested, Moonie?” Demyx’s speculative stare carved like a knife. “Looking for a flavor of the week? Because that’s pretty spicy even for you.” Kairi blew bubbles with her straw, but they ignored her. “We take our smoke breaks together during curating class.” 

Much to everyone’s surprise, when Roxas finished loading his plate with omelet vegetables minus the egg and bits of scalded meat-free bacon, the sophomore approached Axel’s side. Roxas’ nose had seemed much bigger when reddened, but it was tiny, unlike the two watery eyes that bit colder than the outside. He was pint-sized by Axel’s standard, but that didn’t say much coming from someone who had to crouch in the shower. Roxas’ conventional beauty was that of naked babies from the Sistine Chapel, and Axel wasn’t sure how they hadn’t crossed paths before. Dusky University’s campus wasn’t particularly large, and the student body was so small it regularly felt like deep breathing in a plastic bag.

“Did you guys hear about that kid they found in the woods behind Radiant Hall?” Roxas’ voice had a throaty but tired lull that made the hairs on the back of Axel’s neck stand. “He was naked and covered in paint stolen from the art department and eating shrooms by the fistfuls. Someone said he didn’t take his Ritalin that morning, so they ended up having to sedate him for 48 hours afterward. People weren’t sure if he went to school here when they found him, but he totally does. Didn’t hear his name, though. Doubt they’re going to disclose it.”

Axel parted his lips to conjure something witty, but Demyx beat him to the punch. “Roxas, wasn’t that _you_?”

A quiet dissipated over the group, and Roxas stared down at Demyx, dropping his plate onto the table with a hard smack. “ _No_.”

Kairi had dated Sora. This was an unspoken truth that’d been lost in the Twilight Zone of freshman year, but Axel noted how Roxas wasn’t acknowledging her. He wondered if the falling out had really been _that_ bad. It’d been another classic case of Women and Gender Studies ruining a relationship.

“Axel,” Kairi prodded his ankles with her Chelsea boots. “We have class in ten minutes, and you’re going because I don’t want to sit alone.”

“Let’s go before that bastard gets there first and takes my seat again.” Axel swiped up his napkin and realized he wasn’t going to be introduced to the new kid nor was he going to introduce himself simply because his tongue wasn’t functioning. “Sit in a seat for _eight_ fucking weeks and someone takes it. What do I have to do? Raise my leg and spray from now on? It’s not even a good seat.” He lifted his coffee to Demyx. “Thanks for saving the day.”

“We’re drinking again tonight.” Demyx stated, matter-of-fact and entirely unarguable. “Get it done, Axel. Get that Shake-ez-spear or whatever you children study out of the way before ten, so that we can actually _do_ something tonight that isn’t watching Law and Order.”

“You’re a disgrace to the theater department, Demyx.” Axel was walking backward, and Kairi appeared beside him to urge him on with an impatient head bob. “Fucking _Shake-ez-spear_. Just drop out already. Do something worth someone’s time.”

“Sorry I don’t _read books_ like you!”

Kairi had caught Axel’s bicep and was dragging him with an urgent humming that was growing louder and louder until it became pitchy grunting that sounded suspiciously like an early 2000s Beyoncé hit. “Better than playing pretend all day and _dancing_.”

Demyx stood up and almost knocked over Roxas’ orange juice. Roxas caught the glass and continued watching with bored chewing. “I will roundhouse pirouette you into an ass chasm, you pretentious James Joyce Wish-I-Was. Can’t _wait_ for you to teach English to my middle school aged bastard and pay the bare minimum on your student loans.”

“Can’t wait for you to be my _waiter_ , Mr. Mickey Mouse Club.”

Before Demyx could climb over the table, Kairi finagled a braying Axel out of the cafeteria and across campus to the English, Philosophy and Foreign Language building tucked away in a Victorian rebuild that was a parody of the English major stereotype. Bastion House was known for two things; ashtrays and student-teacher relations. Most of the time, students were found gathered on the wraparound porch discussing assignments, what they were reading, and who was nailing whom. It was the coven of black skinny jeans and H&M gift cards, and as much as Axel wanted to make fun of them, he knew he drank the Kool-Aid. 

“Axel, I read it.” Zexion sidestepped in front of them with a novel in hand. He pushed his pastel blue hair backward and shoved the book against Axel’s chest. “I hated it.”

Axel gaped at the librarian double majoring in English and Medieval Literature. Zexion was a myth. He was the academic equivalent to a centaur among mortals, and whenever Axel read his papers his tongue dried from the weight of his inferiority. Zexion was published. He did research for _fun_ , and in Axel’s opinion, was disgusting and too equipped to be at Dusky University. This was all balanced by consistently rootless unnatural hair and a collection of Banana Republic loafers Axel snubbed whenever he had the chance. 

“Why couldn’t you just give this back to me at home?”

Zexion was also the final of three roommates. “Because it’s _that_ terrible.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“Indisputably.” 

Kairi tugged Axel before he could reply and engage Zexion in the same kind of banter he’d just finished with Demyx. She lead the way to a red carpeted hallway and jerked him into a filling classroom with antiquated desks and a chalkboard. They rounded the doorjamb, and Axel spotted the bastard who’d taken his seat making his way to the desk. With a grunt, he yanked himself from Kairi’s grip to use legs that could’ve had a transatlantic relationship with one another to step from one desk seat onto the one he’d claimed as his own two months before.

“You’re an idiot,” Kairi observed, taking her time to sit beside him as he crouched down. “Maybe even a toddler.”

Axel stepped off the desk and plopped down, crossing his legs and bobbing a boot. His arms laid folded across his chest. “This is _my_ seat. This _has_ been my seat.”

He sat through the lecture, immediately going cross-eyed from sleep deprivation, and unaware of his lack of school supplies until Kairi pushed a sheet of college rule onto his desk and handed him a pen. It’d taken a minute of Axel blankly watching the blue lines melting together before he realized he needed to take notes. After a short ‘fuck me’ even the professor heard, Axel started writing in slanted cursive. With the side of his head held in a propped up hand, he was hardly there, and it wasn’t solely because of the drinking. He was beginning to recall the night before. 

 _It felt good, remember? You liked it. No, you_ loved _it._

“We cannot drink again tonight,” Axel announced when class was dismissed.

Kairi took his notes and placed them in her folder. “You were spacing. What day is it?”

“I was one with the interplanetary void, and it’s Wednesday.”

“It’s Thursday.”

_Go home, shower, study and forget._

Simple really. Forgetting was the most basic skill he’d acquired during his college career, and it was simultaneously the most useful and dangerous. Axel shuffled back to his townhouse and the autumn blues made his arms prickle and ribs shake like branches; or, so he told himself that was the reason. He broke into a jog as soon as Kairi dug out his notes and explained she had to go make nice with a tutor. Axel’s beanie was already off by the time he reached the front door of the townhouse, novel clenched at his side and homework forthcoming like the Plague of Blood. He wanted to nap away the whirring in his guts, but he was too busy.

Axel grabbed his laptop after showering off the filth from the night before. The reluctance to open it came with a stuttering exhale, but he popped up the screen and rapidly typed in his password with bile climbing his throat. His fingers were numbing as the screen illuminated his face in the semi-darkness of the house’s low-lit den, and he _knew_. He knew exactly what he’d done and how good it’d felt at the time. There was no taking it back either. No denial could buffer the inexcusable action and he had technology to blame  because God forbid he blame himself.  

There _it_ was. Absolute ruination at its finest, and in all that retina display glory paid for by his meager refund. Axel pushed his fingers into his hair and shook the damp tresses only to wonder what he’d been thinking. _Not a whole lot, apparently_. 

He dragged his digit across the track pad, exited from the program with a tap and opened a fresh Word document that appeared blank and wholesome. Spread out on the table was a stained collection of notes and sources he’d been gathering over the past month, but he didn’t want to go near it. He never did. The irony of being such a ‘damn good student.’ Axel glared a hole through his computer’s screen, considered the fact he was paying to be there, and then shut the laptop with barely enough time to turn on Law and Order before Demyx shoved open the front door, loudly barking into the receiver of his iPhone and waving his script. 

They made eye contact, and he gestured at Axel's stack of schoolwork. “Slacker! Do something _now_ so that we can do something _tonight_.”

Axel’s brain was a cluster of rotting grapes. 

The fermentation lasted until Demyx made sure Axel had annotated at least four articles before yanking him up, dressing him like a paper doll and dragging him out the door with promises of free booze and potential quick loving from maybe _someone_. Axel wasn’t uninterested, but he also wasn’t interested enough to show explicit excitement about a lay or _wherever_ they were headed. He hadn’t caught the memo somewhere between being called ‘the laziest straight A student ever conceived’ and being asked ‘why is everything you own black?’

Axel didn’t know it then, but they were walking to Riku’s townhouse. It was only a five-minute trek through rows of look-alike buildings. It was by chance Riku wasn’t in the Radiant building’s basement, smoking through his menthols and painting with semen from a one-night stand infused with his acrylics. Riku and Axel weren’t close, but they were somehow associated with one another through the extension of their peculiarity. Axel wished they weren’t. Not just because Riku painted with dumped out condoms, but also because he was unapologetically disgusting. There was a reason he was affectionately referred to as ‘Reekz.’ 

Demyx liked Riku, forcing Axel to stifle his face of disenchantment when he realized where they were going. “We’re not staying long.”

“ _You’re_ not staying long,” Demyx corrected before he knocked on the front door.

Riku opened the door a moment later and immediately pressed his shoulder against the doorframe with a speculator’s stare, looking strangely sultry with the lowlighting behind him and cigarette in hand. Axel knew he’d showered that morning because his dreads were missing their usual stains of paint and were swept back into a clean messy bun that drooped off the back of his head. 

“There’re only a few people here right now.” He pushed back and let them inside. “What a surprise, Axel.” 

Axel wondered if it’d gotten around he didn’t like him. He pretended that wasn’t possible. “I try to be as elusive as possible so there’s some kind of novelty to seeing me.”

Riku’s living room consistently lacked lighting, but it was intentional with paisley Grateful Dead tapestries covering the walls and "Psycho Killer" trilling from a compact record player in the corner. Riku roomed with Sora who was currently postured on the couch with a glass bong in hand, watching muted ESPN while his mouth subtly moving along to the ‘fa-fa-fa’ of the background music. When he saw Axel, they exchanged eye contact, but neither held it.

“I met your brother today.” Axel didn’t know why he was talking to Sora sober, but he took the fifth of Fireball from Demyx’s fist and sat down beside the brunet. Axel noted Sora was from Asian descent _again_ , but he wasn’t sure how diluted it was or if it was rude to ask. He’d always wondered, though. “I had no idea you even had a brother. What’s up with that?”

“ _Wha_ – you mean Roxas? My half-brother?” Sora wouldn’t turn to look at Axel, but the redhead knew why. “What about him?”

“I kind of liked the look he had going on.” Axel unscrewed the red cap and cheered against Sora’s bong with a ringing clink. Riku had vanished into the kitchen, and there was murmuring. He realized Kairi was there, and she must’ve been busy not to greet him as soon as he'd walked inside. “You two don’t look related. It’s probably why I never noticed him before.”

Sora laughed, but it was more like a gurgle. “You _do_ have a type.”

“I never said that.” Axel rolled his jaw through a grin, and he offered Sora his Fireball. Sora noncommittally waved it away. “You’re just _hoping_ I have a type.”

“Why would I _hope_ you have a type?” 

Axel knocked back a shot, his chest searing as he refused to answer Sora’s question they both knew the answer to. He stared at the television screen, not caring about football enough to take in the score, and Demyx reappeared with Kairi and a bag of chips. Everything was low key; boring even, until Pence the linebacker arrived with Hayner the Criminal Justice major who was rapidly texting when he plopped down between him and Sora. Axel knew Hayner and Pence from parties, but they weren’t anything except friendly shit talkers. 

“He’s not coming,” Hayner snapped at Pence. “Of course he’s not coming.”

“Because you told him Sora would be here.”

Sora perked at the sound of his name and then rolled his eyes to the side, deflating. “That’s cool.”

“Roxas won’t come here because you’re here.” Hayner waved his phone around with an aggravated sigh. “Maybe we should go to his room and _make_ him?”

“Don’t bother,” Sora murmured, suddenly sulking. “Crossing circles is weird anyway.”

Axel had no reason to intervene with the brothers’ social circles. It wasn’t like he had some kind of authority with Sora’s family feud, nor did he know Sora enough to prod him into letting his younger brother tag along. There was residual guilt there. He’d boldfaced ignored a kid who was _apparently_ already anti-social enough without his help. The least Axel could do was drag someone into sharing in his quiet suffering, which he _was_ suffering. Exhaustion was making his eyes burn and sticky, his contacts screaming for hydration. It was why he continued wrapping his lips around the top of the bottle, searching for an opportune moment to bounce.

“We’ll be right back,” Hayner said as he stood up. "With Roxas."

He was relieved when he watched Hayner leave the space between him and Sora, and Sora’s glazed stare with its pointed fissures of red locked in on their almost-touching knees. Axel knowingly flicked his tongue along the gums encasing the inside of his right molars All at once, he decided he hated himself for considering fucking up again. He’d woken up to the reality of his bad decisions from the night before, but the idea of digging deeper into the well had appeal. 

This appeal was why Axel moved himself to stand up and wordlessly stride toward Sora’s upstairs bedroom as if he owned the place, and it didn’t take the other long to get the general idea.While he hadn’t drank enough to warrant what he was going to do, which was why he tipped the bottle back and chugged until his gag reflexes screamed the warning for him to stop, Axel truly didn't care. Right before he spat up the mouthful, he swallowed it and shook his head. Sora met him at the door.

“I bet you’ve told so many people,” Sora whispered under his breath as he stepped closer to Axel, grabbing the end of his jacket and tugging him close. He suddenly laughed, but it was light and airy like his voice. Axel had never figured out why some people were intimidated by Sora when he was so righteous and faux-kind. “Does the entire campus laugh at me when I’m not looking? Laugh at the fact that I’m a big fucking queer for you?”

“Sora, I suck your dick.” He waggled the bottle between them. “With the help of this. I’ve got no one to tell. No reason to tell because _you_ don’t tell.”

Sora pushed open his door and revealed the hell that was his sports poster plastered, trophy-lined shelving, pizza crusts on paper plates layered bedroom. Axel checked the time and wanted to laugh at the simple 10:00 PM glaring at him from the side table’s digital clock. It was too early to be in Sora’s bedroom, and he knew someone could come looking for them.

“Maybe we should wait a couple hours? Riku _will_ look up here.”

“I don’t care what Riku thinks.”

That was a lie. Axel considered it as Sora set the bong on the desk, only to think twice and hand it off Axel who graciously took it. Seated on the bed, he ripped a lung full from the mouth of the neck and concentrated on the burbling of water with a furrowed brow. Axel wasn’t even sure if he was turned on by the idea of Sora sucking cock on his knees, but when Sora’s mouth made nice with his neck, coating his pulse with hot breath and sticky kisse, it was obvious things would fall into place as if he were. It wasn’t that Sora was unappealing. Axel was just tired.

They were in the room for under an hour. Long enough for sweat to accumulate between their thighs and pelvises, and long enough for Axel to realize they’d forgotten a condom _again_ but only by the second load that hotly coated Sora’s throat. The two swallowed only because Sora had decided he liked the initial spurt on the roof of his mouth the first time it’d accidentally happened. From there, it’d been a constant on both sides only because it seemed fair. Not to mention, briny spunk didn’t bother Axel that much, especially six shots of Fireball into the night. 

“I wish I could swallow dick the way you do,” Sora confessed through his panting, watching as Axel tucked himself back into his jeans. 

Axel zipped and then rubbed the side of his face with the heel of his palm. “Practice.”

“Who else have you been with?”

“No one recently.” _You fucking liar_.“I don’t have time.”

“You know, I’ve heard rumors.” Sora reached down and dragged his fingers along the back of Axel’s neck, and Axel’s stomach roiled as he processed what Sora had said. “You can tell me, Axel. We don’t tell anyone anything that happens here, so it’s fine.”

Axel wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and stood up. He tried to mask his panic, but there was something harrowing about hearing the implication from another person. The idea that others _knew_ was enough to send him into an internalized kind of hyperventilation that made his fingers tremble as he scooped up the forgotten bottle of Fireball.

“Look, this was nice. _Uh_ – ” Immense humiliation forced him to dredge his speech. “I’ve got to go check in with Demyx before he thinks I went to lie down in the woods and die.”

“Axel, don’t be fucking weird about it. I didn’t mean to make this suck. _Wait_!”

Waiting wasn’t an option. Axel shoved open the door and turned the corner only to nearly trip over something weighty and warm that angrily yelped in response to the assault. Axel's hand slammed against the wall to catch his fall, but he still managed to drunkenly hit his knees with an embarrassing thud. He glanced over his shoulder and watched in horror as Roxas began pushing their legs apart. The blond had been seated outside the door the entire time with his back pressed against the wall and legs stretched outward like a bored child. Bored 'child' wasn’t a good way to describe him right then because he was swearing under his breath and muttering up a storm.

“Watch it! I know you're a California Red, but that doesn't mean ants don't exist!”

Axel knew by the rummaging coming from Sora’s bedroom that Sora recognized his brother’s voice and both of their red hands. He cleared his throat and uncertainly tried standing but ended up having to turn entirely around so that he was sitting and could figure out how to function from an elementary point. _I shouldn’t be this fucked up_. 

“People don’t usually sit outside of bedrooms and eavesdrop. My bad for not looking for the invasive asshole on the floor.” He  finally stood up, and before Roxas could throw something back at him even half as salty, he was running from the situation, pushing through the horde of people who’d accumulated along the stairs and in the living room.

“There you are!” Demyx shouted, but Axel ignored him as he made a beeline for the front door. "Okay! Fine by me! Fuck you, too! You could leave the bottle, you know!"

His insides were molten lava, not from whiskey, but the aggravated fear of being found out by the entire campus. Thin fingers pushed into his hair as he strode down the sidewalk through bitterly cold autumn air, and he wished he’d gagged and bound Sora. He would’ve never gotten away with it, but at least he could’ve been known for that instead of... He didn’t want to think about it. Axel’s chest suddenly rattled from a piercing ache, and he made his way to one of the lonely benches hidden behind a gnarled oak tree. He lit up, breathing hard with trembling hands and reminded himself that no one remembered anything on campus for long. 

In the morning, even he would forget what'd happened. 


	2. St. Paul's Cathedral and a Side of Macaroni and Cheese

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bless Heartumbles on Tumblr for being a wonderful beta at 2 AM.

Early mornings weren't Axel's favorite, but sometimes he found their crispness purgative. It was the rarity of the genesis that continued to make it special, particularly during the autumn when his breath was steamy and lungs stung from the impact of cold air. Between late nights hugging the base of a toilet and pacing around his kitchen while Demyx helped him create songs to memorize publications, Axel didn't find the dawn accessible unless he was pulling an all-nighter. But all-nighters weren't the same as rolling out of bed, still in sweats and a hooded sweatshirt, mouth sticky and eyes crusted over by lethargic resilience. There was nothing quite like standing outside with the morning's first cigarette and cup of coffee to equalize a night of shame.

Axel didn't like, let alone love, Sora. But what was the correlation between lust and love, and why did Axel care at six in the morning when he hadn't even taken a morning piss yet? Another good thing about solitary mornings were their proclivity for reflection. Too bad the proclivity never made it past lunchtime, and he found himself cyclically repeating his mistakes all while knowing better. This wasn't anything new. There was no climactic build up to the realization he was not a properly functioning adult in the realm of Nearly Graduated. Not that anyone was, but Axel was narcissistic enough to think he was beyond the atypical student mold.

His fingers clenched the World's #1 Dad mug.  _So much for forgetting by morning_.

In vivid detail, he recalled what'd happened the night before. He hadn't been drunk, which meant he hadn't nearly been on level with Sora, so Axel was out of excuses for why it'd happened  _again_. Straight Sora, Kairi's ex-boyfriend Sora, completely divergent of Axel's political agenda Sora; the list continued. The brunet was another soon-to-be fraternity brother attempting to purge his same sex ideations, which Axel could feign acceptance of. Wasn't human exploration normal? And how aberrant was it of him to exploit Sora's experimentation for his own emotionally void satisfaction? Somehow it bothered him, but Axel couldn't line the pieces up as to why it bothered him. It only made his head hurt.

When he stepped back inside, Demyx was in the kitchen flipping through a highlighted script and muttering words under his breath with eyes lit by familiar panic. Passing him on his way to the coffee pot, Axel smacked the bottom of the stack of paper and snorted when it bopped Demyx's nose. Demyx barked out of annoyance but continued skimming a page, clearly too engrossed in potential academic failure to care about his unfortunate coexistence with Axel.

"That's what you get for wearing _that_."

"Wearing  _what_?" Demyx lowered the script. "Do you want to  _eat_ me, Axel? I don't have time for your fashion annotations. In two hours, I'm auditioning. Lay off my block coloring."

"We're going to breakfast!" Zexion announced as he bounded down the stairs, clove in hand and gray beanie in the other. "Axel, let's go, go,  _go_. I don't have time for your excuses about missing another class. It is  _Friday_ , and we've walked through the Valley of the Academic Week. No – not  _walked_. We made like Věra Čáslavská and triple back flipped through the…"

Axel fish eyed his mug.  _It's so early_. "Czhecian what-what was that?"

"I had to write a paper on famous gymnasts last week, and the names are tripping through my mind like an electric toy train set. Round and round and round..."

This was routine. Breakfast after hangovers and then onto classes too small and concentrated to sneak a nap into. That was the bane of attending a tiny private school where someone couldn't take a shit in even the most secluded third floor bathroom without it being referred to as a scandal. In most state schools, people changed friends after freshman year. No one was  _actually_  best friends with their first roommates, but there Axel was, two and a half years later, still sharing main arteries with the two people he'd clicked with the most in his freshman dorm.

"Look at this," Axel muttered, mushing his dry scrambled eggs with the back of his fork. "This is why our plumbing sucks. This is why I shit fire once a day."

Demyx shoveled his eggs down his throat, and Axel was certain he didn't chew. "I thought we agreed you shit chilies because all you eat is Sriracha with food for garnish."

Axel waved that off while reaching for his cup of coffee. "These eggs are harvested from Chernobyl."

"Maybe they'll give you superpowers, and you can finally drop out."

There was a glimmer of blond that shot through Axel's peripheral vision, and he tilted his head ever-so-slightly to catch the sight of Roxas bumbling through the doors with Hayner smacking at his back with a textbook, apparently having a mid-semester meltdown. Roxas' cowlicks were reaching for God, and Hayner was just as disoriented in drop crotch sweats and a school sweater. Axel was beginning to wonder how he'd never seen Roxas before when in just two days his existence was becoming omnipresent.

Any appeal Roxas might've had before was stunted by the recollection of Roxas, and officially only Roxas, knowing something was going on between him and Sora. Axel quit mutilating his eggs and followed Demyx's example. He ate with a rolling jaw; suddenly nauseated by the thought of the things he did when no one was looking. Axel didn't understand his own perversions, but he hoped they weren't half as animalistic as he was beginning to believe they were.

After making the correlation between his sexual self-loathing and the fact he was eating  _eggs_ , Axel noticed Hayner and Roxas walking toward their table. He shot Demyx an angry stare since he'd been the one who'd sent the invitation to their table's new members, but he was concentrating on his script. Zexion was also reading a last minute article for his arbitrary exercise science elective, and Axel then realized he was the only person capable of carrying on a conversation.

"I'll see you two later." Axel pushed back his seat and snatched up his tray. He eyed the dispensary. "Forgot some things in my room."

Zexion lifted his fork. "One second, sir!"

Axel impatiently tapped his boot as Zexion stabbed his untouched hash brown. He then tilted Axel's tray and spilt the remainder of his eggs onto his pancakes. "Want to lick it clean for me, too?"

He slapped the hash brown onto his muffin. "Never question the versatility of a hash brown."

Demyx tore his gaze away from his script and looked on in awe. "Well piss in my glass and call it champagne. Is that even  _good_?"

Axel didn't wait to find out, and he darted away because there wasn't half as much maturity in his system as he pretended there was. Whether or not Roxas noticed he was being pointblank avoided was lost on Axel because he was out the front door of the Student Center in a rapid blur clouded by panic. Clear blue skies mocked him overhead, and he ignored the freshman that paused and shot him glances accompanied by intrigued whispers about his mythic escapades. Roxas had called him a California Red, which was accurate. At least, for the underclassman it was, but how couldn't it be when Axel stormed along the campus sidewalks like Zephyrus' billowing ire?

Bastion House was already surrounded when he bounded up the wooden steps and through the front door. The main hallway was crowded with students, piled on high-backed leather chairs and antiquated furniture, gossiping about who was fucking whom while waiting for professors to unlock their office doors. Each clique paused to cast him glances as he passed, and Axel's skin prickled in awareness. A lump that would take all day to swallow down swelled in his throat when he turned the corner.

Ansem, the student coined 'sage' of Bastion House, was in the middle of opening his office door while, Xemnas, a Medieval literature professor who dominated a third of the English department, casually discussed his changing expectations for his upper-level classes. Beside Xemnas loomed his TA, Saix Harwick, who was the first to notice Axel approaching. Axel's gaze locked in on the teacher's assistant with a lopsided frown of disenchantment only to drop it just as quickly.

Saix was the only person he'd managed a falling out with in almost three years, and Axel had tried convincing himself it was because Saix hadn't appreciated Samuel R. Delany's "Hogg" their freshman year. It definitely couldn't have been because Saix sucked the figurative toes of Xemnas' ideology far past the 'getting ahead' point of ambition all while being an emotional incubus claiming to be asexual but drunkenly promising Axel he'd finger himself for his 'best friend' and let him watch. This was something Axel was still trying to wrap his head around almost two years later.

After being criticized for his lack of analytical skill and casual posturing that contributed to the literary world's dying standards, Axel had told Saix to find the analogical language in licking his hairy asshole. While that had been the end of their merry-go-round of a platonic nightmare, Axel still found himself nursing on the sagging tit of nostalgia whenever Saix and he were forced to interact in their suffocating department.

"Did you need something, Axel?" Ansem pushed open his door. "Class doesn't start for thirty minutes."

Axel didn't bother to flicker his stare in the direction of Xemnas and Saix again. "I wanted to go over a small part of our reading. If that's chill, I mean. It's nothing big."

Xemnas took the hint to excuse himself. Saix followed after Xemnas like a duckling, and as soon as Axel meandered into the office, he strode toward the Keurig posing in the corner like a temptress. He spun the K-cup carousel as if playing Russian roulette and landed on Starbucks' Breakfast Blend. The second time he spun, he ended up on Donut Shoppe's Coconut Mocha and methodically turned which flavor he'd drink into a word game. His and Ansem's names in alphabetical order were Ansem and Axel, and Coconut Mocha and Breakfast Blend was Breakfast Blend and Coconut Mocha. If he were to properly assign the drinks based on alphabetical correlation, then he'd get the Coconut Mocha. Satisfied with his reasoning, Axel made Ansem's cup of coffee, tearing the aluminum seal off the unopened canister of creamer with his teeth and humming.

"Don't be surprised if we're interrupted by Xemnas within the next ten minutes." Ansem finished putting away his graded stacks of paper, and he and Axel exchanged knowing smiles that could've devoured raw meat. "He's been politely asking me to review his new syllabus five times a day since Monday, but I haven't had the time."

"You mean you haven't  _made_ the time?" Axel impatiently shifted his weight, watching the coffee trickle into a red ceramic mug. "Ever hear of the disciples and Christ theory some of students have here? There's pretty advanced theological language in it. Someone even joked about making it a part of their senior thesis, but we all agreed the generational gap in humor was too much for it to be appreciated by the board. I think you'd still appreciate the effort that went into it."

"I'd rather you didn't divulge the student gossip." Ansem took his seat at the desk. When Axel finished their cups of coffee, Ansem gestured at the two plush maroon chairs across from his desk. Axel had long ago decided they looked like mushrooms. "I didn't assign any reading for this week. If I recall correctly, then we're only peer editing this morning."

He handed off Ansem's mug and then slowly sat down after removing his black Herschel Supply Co. Settlement backpack and dropping it into the empty chair beside him. He crossed his legs, bobbing his boot, and grimaced. "It's one of  _those_  mornings."

"The robustness of being alive can be overwhelming for some."

He paused his foot and glanced at his professor only to return to bouncing when he looked toward the built in shelves lining the walls. "Now that's a romanticized way of saying 'you can't handle living' if I've ever heard one."

"I'm afraid I can't agree with you there."

He blew a raspberry and sank even lower into the armchair, tilting his head back while gripping tight to his mug. "It can't be much else."

"Sometimes it's completely appropriate not to define ourselves entirely." He looked Axel over who was still not giving him eye contact. "But there are people who seem to be more aware of their soul's trepidation than others, and if a person can be aware of their soul, then they're going to be aware of the minute details of their surroundings by default. This awareness, this self-awareness, can be simultaneously the most driving force in our lives all while being consuming and difficult to manage."

"It's exhausting."

"But somehow gratifying, even on its worst days." Ansem took a sip of coffee, softly cleared his throat and flipped through the notes on his desk. "How's your mother?"

"She's the same," Axel distractedly replied.

"But you aren't." It wasn't a question, but a fact not up for dispute. "Have you visited her recently? You said it'd been some time since you two last spoke."

"I did. A few weeks ago." Axel picked at the rim of his mug and watched the subtle ripples of coffee with every pluck of his finger. "We're more alike than I ever wanted us to be."

"That's interesting coming from you," Ansem said, but he didn't elaborate. After a moment of lingering silence that was contently held between them, the professor scooped up his notes for his next class. "Let's not be late. Axel, could you kindly carry my coffee in after me? I'm afraid I don't have enough hands at the moment. Another woe of being human, I'm afraid. In this occupation, being an octopus would be much more convenient."

* * *

Class ended, and Axel had made the decision to avoid the townhouse somewhere in between listening to a failed defense mechanism for a pointblank horrible paper and noting how Ansem was giving him a reproachful stare for critiquing like a basilisk. The year before, he'd considered making a petition to ban non-English majors taking upper-levels in the English department, but Zexion had assured him that was pretentious even for his standards.

"A wise man once said pick your battles," Zexion said while smacking Demyx's hand away from his carton of Chinese food. "And also not to be an egotistical, narcissistic trash bag who contributes to the English department's already brain-snuffing, unwarranted pretention. I swear to fucking  _God_ , Demyx. I'll shove this box so far down your esophagus you'll be shitting these noodles out like worms..."

Located on the east end of campus was the LRC, Learning Resource Center, or if you were as antediluvian as everyone pretended to be on campus, the library. It was a posturing building structured from aging red bricks donated by alumni pre-dating the 1960s, and the colonial prestige in which it stood for was worthy of assessment. Two white columns inspired by the Greek tradition cascaded down the front, framing an unused balcony, and the three-floor (basement excluded) mammoth of a building was topped with a dome directly casted from the concept of St. Paul's Cathedral.

This was one of the few places the students could disappear on campus, and it was a haven for people like Axel who felt like their entire existence was the talk of the town. He pushed through the one of three front doors, and with feet slapping across marble, rushed toward the grand, double-sided staircase that led toward the second floor. It wasn't so much that he had anything to do because he always had something to do when it came to school. This was about being impossible to locate.

The second floor was a maze of bookcases, and when Axel had taken his first of three tours of Dusky University, it was this very place that kept him coming back. Endless square footage wrapped around an overlook of the Fireplace Room (a place meant for studying for those unfortunate enough to not have a laptop or printer of their own) was crammed with the haphazardly organized labyrinth of shelves. Bordering the floor were secluded oak desks meant for studying along with dark study rooms rarely used for anything other than premarital relations with a flare for sodomy. The third floor, where the domed ceiling cascaded angelic light onto clusters of tables, was the preferred floor for studying and second only to the Fireplace Room's convenient first floor setting.

He made a beeline for the farthest right corner where a couch, microwave and coffee table were hidden. It was one of the few gems on campus and where Axel had taken more naps than he could count. It was why, when he spotted someone in that secluded spot, his blood pressure spiked.

"Shit," he muttered under his breath and pulled back.

Roxas was kneeled in front of the microwave, forehead pressed against the see through door with his eyes completely focused on whatever he was heating up. His eyes listlessly followed the revolving item, unfocused with a brain most likely padding over a thousand thoughts at once or maybe nothing at all. Axel knew that tired stare, but Roxas was the last person he wanted to find solidarity with.

The microwave dinged, Roxas tugged the door open and reached in to extract a cup of Easy Mac. Axel's stare traveled toward the coffee table where books were stacked. Every title pertained to physics, and Axel's nose crinkled in disdain because he couldn't think of anything worse. He'd made an A in his biology with a lab, but had dropped out of his physics class not once, but twice due to intimidation. He'd bit the bullet, also made an A, but only after sitting up all night with Demyx who'd taken the class with him and building their own musical around the concepts. Both of them had spent their entire final mouthing along to the made up songs, visibly bobbing their heads and drumming fingers.

"Want some Easy Mac?"

Axel's heart thumped. " _Hey_  - what? No. No thanks."

"You've been standing there gawking at me for ten minutes. Did you claim this place, too? I checked the seats. Didn't smell like piss." Roxas stirred his plastic fork through the macaroni and cheese, and he was trying not to smile. The wetness of cheese and noodles rubbing made Axel's shoulders twitch. "You can sit here if you want. I'm not stopping you. Theoretical free country and what have you."

"I was just looking for a book. It should be over here somewhere…"

"On East Asian studies?" Roxas thoughtfully licked his upper-lip and then rolled them together to mask his growing fight not to smile. "Well, when you find it, you can sit here and read it and decide if it's what you're looking for. I'd help you if I knew anything about it."

Axel decided he would rather guzzle Tabasco. "Do you study here a lot?"

"No," he said and then pushed a mouthful of Easy Mac between his lips. "Do you?"

"Studying wouldn't really be the word." He ran his thumb along his own jawline and anxiously processed every title in multiple sweeps. "More like,  _gratis_  rejuvenation."

"So, you nap here." Roxas' tone was amusingly dead, and Axel snorted.

"If that's how you want to put it, but whatever, Roxas."

He couldn't believe Roxas and he were acting casual. The night before he'd heard both him swallowing his brother's dick and the gruff moaning that comes with being given head by someone who knew what he was doing. The thought alone made Axel's face contemplate melting, and he wished it would. He'd probably contract an infection and die, which would solve a lot of his problems.

There was a book about imperialist China glaring at him with its red binding and golden font. Axel snatched it up, pretended to evaluate the synopsis on the back and then waved off Roxas with his fingertips tingling and neck and ears surging with heat. Roxas waved back, purposefully dragged his stare down the entirety of Axel and then disconnected their interaction by reaching forward for one of his textbooks, still chewing and no longer distracted by the looming figure. Only then did Axel retract from the corner he'd once called his own to find another couch very far away from the sole witness.

He tossed the book aside on a table and kicked his boots up, crossing them at the ankles and staring ahead.

"Don't…" He muttered to himself as the sound waves in his ears trembled. " _Don't_ …"

He grew quiet and stared straight ahead. The wall in front of him threatened to melt, and he kneaded the cushion beneath the bends of his knees. Axel's fingers slipped along the leather seating, but it was better than being completely unanchored in the processes his brain was failing to compute. Salvador Dali would've had a heyday with the way the creamy wall dripped like clotted milk.

Axel wasn't sure how long he sat there staring, but it wasn't until someone traveled through his peripheral vision did he start and return to the world of the living. That someone was Roxas, with his softly swaying tufts of blond and stare of determination. They didn't notice one another at first, but it was more than likely because Roxas' headphones were in and whatever he was listening to was burning him up. As soon as Roxas sang a single line out loud, Axel raised his eyebrows and bit back a laugh. Roxas was feeling himself, and that was obvious when he stopped in front of the section he'd been looking for and swayed with the kind of shoulder pop that was surprisingly fluid.

He recognized the song as Frank Ocean's "Pink Matter." Axel shamelessly watched Roxas drag his fingers along the spine of book after book, and there was something impossible about the way his lips parted, thick brows raised and lyrical voice soulfully projected throughout the silence of the library.

Roxas reached up for the top shelf, but he was too short for the book he wanted. He dropped his arm, looked from side-to-side, still not seeing Axel, and Axel knew he was looking for one of the stepping stools. He couldn't have imagined being that vertically stunted at twenty-something years old.

"Fuck me," Roxas murmured as he tugged out his headphones.

Axel stood, forgetting entirely about his book on China, and appeared behind Roxas. It was then he could see the top of Roxas' head barely reached his collarbones, causing him to swallow at the thoughts that followed. With infuriating ease, he raised his arm and nabbed the book Roxas had been trying to reach for the past handful of seconds. Roxas quirked an eyebrow, following the arm's motion with his gaze, and then whipped his body to face Axel who was offeringed him the book.

"Need this?" He asked, suddenly turning the book in his hand. "Looks  _interesting_."

"Yeah," Roxas said, but the scrutiny was readable in the wrinkle across his forehead. Axel noted it and handed off the book. "Thanks."

"What's your major?" He had a hunch.

"Astrophysics."  _Right._ "And you're an English major."

"How'd you know?" Axel paused and ran his fingers along the back of his neck. "Aside from, you know, looking the part. I know we kind of all act like a cult."

"Sora told me."

Roxas' wet stare met Axel's suddenly hardened one, and it silently held between them for too long. "What else did Sora tell you?"

"Nothing I couldn't have figured out for myself." Roxas tucked the book beneath his arm and continued his journey down the aisle. "You're not as elusive as you think. People do  _talk_."

Axel followed him like a moth drawn to a candle. "They sure don't talk about  _you_. I'd never even heard your name until yesterday."

"That's because…" Roxas read a couple of titles as he thought. "That's because I don't give them a reason to talk. Unlike  _someone_ …"

"Listen. I do my best to keep my life private." Axel snapped, and Roxas flinched. That made Axel's voice soften, but he was still annoyed. "I'm  _not_ being exploitive."

That touch of knowing in Roxas' following side-glance infuriated Axel, and the urge to take the book he'd plucked from the shelf and stick it on top of the highest part of the LRC's dome was almost irresistible. He chuckled and followed the laughter with a small jaw roll that made a distinct pop. It was somehow more jarring than Roxas' singing had been.

Roxas recovered and shot him a smarmy smile. "You're  _mad_  that I know."

"Who  _wouldn't_ be?"

"I can keep secrets." He grabbed another book and added it to his building stack until Axel took them from his arms. Roxas didn't mask his surprise. "Especially for my brother's sake."

"What if your brother wasn't involved?"

"Like I _care_  where a complete stranger puts his dick?"

"So, you're _no_ t going to tell anyone?"

Roxas added another heavy book to the stack by dropping it from an unnecessarily high level. "As if I need to." Before Axel could sigh in relief, he was interrupted. "But I've got to ask. Humor me, okay? What do you see in Sora? I mean, there's something there for you, right?"

 _A hole I wish he'd let me fuck._  "He's fun. He's a… fun guy…"

Roxas sudden laughter made Axel jump. It was the kind of wicked that was as charming as it was harrowing. The blond stood there, another book in hand with his free palm pressed to the side of his head, practically cackling. Axel might've been more unnerved if Roxas hadn't been one pubertal recess from looking like Cupid. "You didn't even  _try_. He's  _fun_? Do you know  _anything_  about him?"

As if on cue, Axel's phone vibrated, and he reached into his back pocket. There was a text from a number that wasn't a part of his phonebook, but he recognized it anyway. Axel's mouth became cotton, and what was left of his saliva was pasty. Glaring back at him was a single word, but that single word was enough to force heat into his cheeks and along the bridge of his nose. From that point on, he couldn't look at Roxas. He knew Roxas would know. It was so obvious.  _He_ was so obvious.

_Tonight?_

* * *

  _Tonight._

He told Roxas it was an emergency, and maybe for him it was. To the rest of the population, it didn't even come close. The unopened book on imperialist China was forgotten on the desk, and Axel bounded out of the LRC and on toward his townhouse. It was still midday. The campus was crawling with students, but Axel only had one class on Friday, which gave him free reign of the house for most of the afternoon. After that text message it was something he needed. To be alone, to mentally prepare…

 _Fuck._  That single word ripped through his head over and over again. Axel's pulse throbbed when he passed Saix and Xemnas on his way past Bastion House, but neither of them paused to acknowledge he was in a rush. People were used to him being all over the place, uncontained when not napping, a kind of unpredictable brick in the wall of Dusky University's academia. People expected him to never have it together, and on some level, he knew they were right. He just managed to make it unobvious at the end of the day, when it mattered the very most.

As predicted, the townhouse was empty. Axel pushed open his bedroom door and began the process of getting ready. His fingers trembled as he yanked open his desk, and he found himself glancing at the laptop tossed onto his bed over and over again. The situation was horrifying for someone in his position, but at the same time, his guts churned with anticipation. The twisting neediness that told him he would feel so much better when it was all over made the process of discerning his murky closet that much easier. Axel knew not to overthink things before 'tonight' actually happened only because that made it so much worse, and it already took long enough for him to relax into the situation. Being perfect mattered more than ever. Axel reminded himself he didn't have much room for error.

'Tonight' was located in a bar twenty minutes off campus. Axel's secondhand Honda had taken the trek multiple times, and it'd become a second nature drive for him. His eyes barely focused on the road, didn't register the rearview mirror, and he tiredly shifted through his iPhone's iTunes with a disconnected focus while mouthing along to The Misfits. Sometimes he'd just drive, and with his skin threatening to turn inside out in the hour of 3 AM, he'd sing along to whatever was blaring from his speakers until his throat burned and he woke up the next morning with a sore throat.

He didn't have the energy or angst to scream out every verse to "Where Eagles Dare," but the feeling was there. Axel groaned when he saw the bar was virtually empty. Nothing was worse or lonelier looking than drinking beer by yourself for an hour before someone showed up. He parked, stepped out onto the cracked and overgrown parking lot with a tightly laced boot, and took a moment to light up and think. He finished his cigarette with static in his head, realized there would be no profound recesses to guide his way and headed inside. The bartender knew him, shot him an amused stare, but Axel honestly didn't know much about him aside from the fact he bleached his hair and ruled at card tricks.

"You're here early," he observed, and he already knew what beer Axel would ask for. Axel drank any kind of light ale, but Luxord had turned him onto one in particular. "He's not here yet."

"He will be soon," Axel said, trying to make it clear he didn't want to talk.

"Older men like that are trouble. Didn't your mum teach you anything?"

Axel suddenly lifted a small brow and gave Luxord a faux-friendly smile. "Guess she died too early to teach her son much of anything."

Slowly the bar filled, and Axel impatiently drummed his fingers along the bar top while dragging his finger along the touchscreen of his phone. He was two beers in before that familiar hand caught his shoulder and swiveled the stool. Axel knew the routine, which was why he barely took in the figure before reaching up; cupping the sides of his freshly shaven face and connecting his mouth with the same person who'd sent him the text. Their lips familiarly moved together, and Axel pushed his fingers into the other's soft hair to bring him closer.

"Hey," Axel muttered against his lips.

"Hey."

* * *

 It was midnight when he drove back onto a mostly dead campus except for the outside of dorms where kids clustered together like smoking flocks of penguins. There was a handful meandering along the sidewalks that ran the perimeter of the campus' main buildings. Axel fleetingly glanced at the far and few in between walking while he abided by the road's mandated 20 mph speed limit. He'd been ticketed on the same road thrice since moving on campus. And really, it wasn't his fault his patience for crossing pedestrians was virtually nonexistent or that there were a couple professors he regularly came close to executing on spot only to think twice and startle instead.

Something hit his driver's side window with a dead thud, and Axel all at once hit the breaks hard enough to whip his head forward and leave a mark on the asphalt. Virtually in the middle of the road, he shifted his car into park with a hard shove and decided he was drunk enough to irrationally take on whoever had thrown the blunt object. When Axel threw open the car door and heard the distinct heckling that was Pence and Hayner accompanied by Roxas' panicked swearing, he had a feeling he wouldn't be kicking anyone's ass. It would've been too embarrassing and Pence was a threat.

Axel stood outside of his car as he watched Roxas jog toward him. The blond was red-faced from both laughing and more than likely cheap vodka, but Axel's dry, unimpressed stare let him know he didn't find his car being brutalized funny. " _What_  did you throw at my car?"

"My bad," Roxas muttered.

Something slowly rolled across the ground and hit Axel's toe with a gentle pap. Between his and Roxas' feet was an angry whirring that sounded like an oncoming storm of bees. He glanced down, processed what he was looking at only to part his lips and then snort both from disgust and amusement. It was a veiny purple vibrator thicker than Axel's wrist, and the impact against has window must have turned it on because it was wildly buzzing along the pavement, bumping between the toes of their shoes like a sped up game of pong.

"Jesus Christ…" Axel went to reach for it, but Roxas beat him to it with a panicked snap. "That could open a black hole in someone's asshole. This what you physics majors are up to..."

"Sorry!" Hayner shouted as Pence crawled toward the bushes on all fours, laughing so hard he was silent. "Roxas can't control himself these days!"

"That's  _yours_?" Axel stepped around as if to inspect Roxas who'd quickly shut the vibrator off after some confused struggling. He was originally breathless from both laughing and the short jog, but right then Axel was sure it was the humiliation of holding a sex toy in front of stranger. "I hope you're using it safely. That would take some  _serious_ practice."

"It's  _not_ mine. God, don't be fucking sick." Roxas shoved it into the front of his hoodie, and he was already trying to step back away from Axel. He was embarrassed, but Axel didn't have the heart or nerve to tell him he'd played with toys that were much worse. The thought made him tilt his head and grin, and Roxas' panic ensued when Axel didn't give him a look implying he believed a word he was saying. "We stole it from Namine's room, and we were about to go bury it behind Radiant Hall."

" _Bury_  it?"

"To give it back to Mother Earth where it belongs!" Hayner shouted. Pence gagged on his laughter. "Mankind is too fragile for such power!"

"Ritualistic cock burial?" Axel reached for Roxas' arm and tugged on it so that he could show off the dildo again. He snorted when it reappeared, and Roxas hid it again. "I'm pretty sure it's big enough to have a life force of its own. Is this dildo a sentient being? Should you exorcise it first?"

"Join our quest, Axel!" Hayner's invitation made Roxas' shoulders hunch. "One shouldn't go alone! Help us bury this evil and…"

"You don't have to," Roxas offered.

"You don't want me to." He could tell Roxas was uncomfortable with him. Not that he blamed him considering  _everything_. Roxas parted his lips as if to argue, but Axel cut him off. "Save it, Roxas. I've got no reason to be offended. I don't even know you. Go do your weird shit in the woods and try not to steal any paint this time. Riku's already bitching about how undersupplied the art building is, and no one wants to hear it more than they have to. I'll see you guys around."

Roxas face blanched, but he didn't get a word in before Axel slid into the car, slammed the door shut and drove off toward the student apartments where Demyx was waiting for him with good news. He'd gotten the part and planned on drinking himself into a stupor for three straight days in order to celebrate. Axel tiredly glanced down at the next stoplight and checked his phone only to exhale.

 _It was good_.


End file.
